


Letters

by 19_empty_vacancies



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Communication Issues, M/M, Naboo and Howard become friends, Post Chokes, Post-Season/Series 03, it's angst for a fair amount of it, mentions of the mighty book of boosh, mentions of the radio series, one (1) misquoted line from a goofy movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 01:54:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14070333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/19_empty_vacancies/pseuds/19_empty_vacancies
Summary: It’s been tense since returning from the humiliation that was the commercial, the ease in which they usually slip back into things was missing this time round and Howard felt himself constantly curl in and step lightly around Vince; trying to draw as little attention as possible.





	Letters

It’s been tense since returning from the humiliation that was the commercial, the ease in which they usually slip back into things was missing this time round and Howard felt himself constantly curl in and step lightly around Vince; trying to draw as little attention as possible. It was a strain, he missed the days of banter and silly games, when it wasn’t all poison barbs about his wardrobe and angry looks.

The ease of times past seemed so far away, and Howard just doesn’t know when it all went wrong. Does Vince think he didn’t care enough to bring him along and has thus been acting like an utter tit box to showcase his ire? Because if that’s what he thinks, he was wrong.

Being away from Vince felt like when he’d died and sat in the staff room of purgatory, all wrong and dull. And Howard had tried to call home every day, but the line was always busy and after a while, that tight feeling he got in his chest whenever he picked up the phone came to be too much and he’d stopped trying to call.

But he wrote.

God, Howard composed so many letters to Vince that his hand started cramping and paper would try and get away from him, screaming “Oh God, please! No more poems!” as they were carried away on sudden winds. Howard got so desperate for paper that he’d use any old scrap he could find, often random adverts and fliers; all of which he’d fill with random streams of conscious about how Vince would love this one patisserie and that the music was toneless and no one pulled shapes.

For some reason, every time he went to slip the letters in the mail box, something held him back.

All the letters and post cards and spare scraps of consciousness and poems lay bound together, still tucked neatly and undisturbed in Howard’s suitcase.

Being away from Vince…

Being…

It clearly hadn’t mattered as much to Vince, hadn’t plagued at him and worn down on him until he felt like he would crumble in the wake of a bee sneeze. Oh no, he’d continued about his day in the shop and in Camden. He’d had _Adam_.

Howard always knew that of the two of them, he certainly relied more on Vince than vice versa but to have it showcased so clearly in the form of a separate moustached, Hawaiian shirt clad Northerner. That had cut deep.

He truly was expendable.

So instead, Howard tipped toed through those first two weeks, shoulders pulled down tight in an effort to draw less attention. He didn’t say anything when Vince would laugh at the commercial when it came on telly or when the graffiti once more appeared on the shutters.

He became a ghost in his own home, only this time, he didn’t have the satisfaction of slamming a cup into someone’s face.

Truly, the only actual, genuine interaction Howard has had since his return was in the twilight hours of night when Naboo comes in from a night out, Bollo sometimes lumbering in behind him or coming in later from a gig. In these moments, Howard brews tea and listens, let’s their tales of the party or council meeting wash over him and paint vivid images across his brain.

It’s surprisingly comfortable, these chats they have.

Howard had always believed Naboo thought he was a simpleton, someone he couldn’t remove so he hired him for menial work. He knew that’s what Bollo thought of him, but since he helped him type up those letters for Peter Jackson, the ape has been coming around. But it was as they sat across from one another, steam from their tea rising between them that they talked.

Well, Naboo ranted about what a ballbag Tony Harrison was and that Saboo was as useful as a soggy walnut; Howard nodded in all the right places as he went on, asking for clarification when the shaman mentioned something he hadn’t heard of previously.

Soon, a routine established itself.

Naboo would come in, Howard would make tea and, as Naboo bitched or raved about what had happened in his evening out, Howard would slide fruit across the table without interrupting. Apples peeled and quartered while Howard nodded along or satsuma segments with the pith as removed as possible.

(Did it ache somewhere in his chest that this used to be his routine with Vince? No. Not at all. Not one little bit. Maybe a little bit. Several bits. Okay all the bits, he was drowning in all the bits that hurt. No! None of the bits, go away! Shoo!)

Somehow, despite living together and working together, Howard saw very little of Vince. He tried to catch him in the kitchen, in the lounge, in the store. Tried, _God_ , tried to start up conversations with him while they were both down in the shop, but it never amounted to anything more than grunts and “Whatever, Howard”.

The lonely feeling that had shrouded him like a fancy cloak of despair returned. Even with Vince right in front of him, Howard felt alone and away from the warmth that he used to feel when around his best friend. Adjusting his stationary village soon migrated into Howard absently penciling thoughts and the jokes he would have once voiced to Vince.

The bound pile of unsent letters and scraps in his suitcase soon had a twin.

“New club opened, Harold would like it.”

Howard had blinked rapidly to zone back in from staring at the rising steam from his cup and looked up to see Bollo holding a flier. For a jazz club. He’d taken it and as he read over the information, Naboo shook his head at him.

“We ain’t going with you, Howard. Got a reputation to keep.”

He goes to it alone.

(It’s amazing, throughout the night there is a seamless transition from soft ringing noir to lively, full trumpet big band. It’s everything he hoped for and more. He recognized and was, in turn, recognized by his old friends who he used to play with.

He was asked to come back and play next time.

He agreed.)

Howard’s return to the flat was met with a steaming cup of tea and segmented satsumas along with a scrap of paper denoting that Naboo and Bollo had been called in to see the Shaman council and probably wouldn’t be back for two days, “try not to get in trouble” was the parting line.

 

It felt like an unsalvageable distance was growing between he and Vince, any step forward could be rife with sharp words or shaky fumbles that lead to the attempt slipping out from under him.

 

A third tower joins the ranks in his suitcase.

 

Sometimes, Howard thinks that he should try and call Vince, that maybe if he turned his back and couldn’t see him, the words would flow out and he’d be able to clear the air. But then he remembers the words choking him, the panic in his chest and the fear that Vince would see his name come up on his phone and hit ignore.

(Sometimes, just sometimes, Howard leaves a random page out, littered with the things he’d wanted to say that day, in the hopes that Vince would find it and read it.

The pages disappear but the cold distance between them does not.)

A change of pace brings Howard to the fringe of Vince’s social circle in the form of Leroy. He’s got a job writing a jingle for a commercial and needs Howard to come in and play a couple instruments for him. It’s one of the most terrifying things to happen to Howard; he went to the studio fully expecting cool professionalism from Leroy, no doubt having heard all from Vince; but instead it’s how it’s always been. Easy, fluid and fun.

The fact that Leroy was wearing (and is still, after four years, in bloody possession of) Howard’s light blue trousers lead to serious back and forth banter, but it otherwise goes smoothly.

“Talk to him.”

Leroy had been coiling up a length of XLR cable when he spoke, probably hoping that if he didn’t look like he cared, it would be easier.

(It wasn’t.)

Howard finished flicking the latches on the instrument cases, eyes down cast as he’d replied, “He doesn’t want me to.”

“I’ve had several weeks that could tell you otherwise, mate.”

“He won’t talk to me. Won’t listen when I try to talk to him.” Howard leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. “I’d say anything if it would make him happy.”

Leroy just gave him a sad look and turned back to the cables.

 

(The commercial aired two weeks later, Leroy came into the shop to congratulate Howard on how well the music turned out. Vince had looked up from his magazine in surprise but otherwise hadn’t said anything.

Howard was successful in not showing how much that hurt him.)

 

It explodes out as he’s coming in from a night playing at the jazz club. He’s returned his trumpet case back to its home in the corner where the rest of the instruments live, and is steeping his tea when the calm is broken.

“You left. You just left, and you didn’t tell me you was leaving!” Vince glared at Howard from the living room, socked toes pointing in and teased hair deflated after a night out. “I came home, your room was packed up and you weren’t here. You never called. You never wrote. You didn’t fucking _care_! Soon as some fancy director came along, you were gone without a backwards glance.”

Howard looked at Vince, eyes as wide as they could go as the words sank in before they narrowed drastically. “I didn’t care. _I_ didn’t care? YOU replaced me as soon as you could! I’m so unremarkable to you, that you went out and got the next bloody wanker walking down the street and hired him!”

“At least when _he_ wasn’t to show up he’d call.”

“ _I never called?_ ” Howard shook his head. “I called every day, Vince! I called four times every single day for two weeks and you know what happened? NOTHING! It was a busy signal every time. I tried to tell you what was happening before I left but you were so enrapt with your band you didn’t care. You think I _wanted_ to go alone? That I wanted to be away from home and away from you?”

“You’ve always wanted to leave!” Vince shouted, “Every chance you get, you’ve tried to make a break for it, fucking disappear without a back glance.”

“Because you were always doing it first! Every chance you got, Vince, you tried to leave me behind. It started with the bands in the Zoo and then when you pulled away to impress your _precious Camden_ _mates_.” Howard pushed away from the kitchen table and marched down the hall into his room and when he returned he was dragging his suitcase, which he swung to land in front of Vince’s feet.

“You were always so ready to drop everything and leave, Vince and I get that; I get that at some point you stopped wanting to be around me, but _don’t you dare say I didn’t write you._ ”

The fight left Howard all at once, shoulders drooping as he scrubbed at his face. “I wrote you every chance I could, Vince, I did. But every time I went to send you what I wrote, something told me not to. Why would you care what I was doing? You hadn’t done for weeks before that. Before I left, we’d gone wrong.”

Vince stood, gazed locked on the open maw of Howard’s suitcase, at the bundles piled inside. “Howard…”

Howard shook his head. “They’re all dated, read them if you want. Burn them. Do what you want with them, Vince. I can’t,” the sigh that escaped him carried _so much_ weight. “I can’t do this anymore tonight.”

 

(Vince reads them all. It takes all night, well into the next day, but he reads them all.

Squared away in his room, he sits on the floor and reads through every single scrap of what Howard wrote him.

His fingers ghost over the painstakingly drawn illustrations of Howard’s day to day view, little cartoons and animal characters he’d thought Vince would like; of the photographs slipped in amongst the letters with notes written on the back like ‘ _I saw this and thought it would be a nice reference piece for your painting’_ or ‘ _picture of lion or of your hair when we were in the zoo???’._

Vince tenses when he sees that the dates continue on to when Howard had come home; his shoulders curl in when he reads some of the things written on torn off corners of art fliers and phone book pages. He remembers what he said that caused some of the notes, others he had no idea about.

_“I’ll close my eyes and just pretend you never said it.”_

_“I try to write you poems, but the words don't make sense”_

_“I want to make you happy, but I can’t.”_

_“I know you’ve got your own life now, but I just want to be a part of it.”_

Sitting in a semi-circle of multi-coloured paper, Vince cries.)

 

It’s cold up on the roof, made colder still by leaning against the chimney bricks, but Howard needed to get some air without truly leaving.

(He’d done enough of that.)

Breathing in deep, Howard watches the sky as he leans forward to hug his knees, connecting the stars and hearing ghosts of their stories. From here, he couldn’t really see much, light pollution and just pollution in general obscuring most of the clarity, but what he could see helped ease something inside of him. Made him think of happy things.

He didn’t turn away to look when he heard the skylight open, could hazard a guess as to who it was.

Vince settled beside him and curled in on himself slightly in an effort to block out the cool wind. Neither spoke for a while, just gazed out and let the sounds of the street below fill the silence between them.

“When we first met years ago, it was an evening like this.”

Howard looked at Vince and swallowed. He was bathed in the blue silver glow from the moon, all cheekbones and soft looking skin. He looked like something otherworldly.

Vince smiled at the memory, “I honestly can’t remember what it was truly like without you in my life, Howard. I have memories of the jungle and then it skips straight over to being around you; no concrete memories of how we met, just that it was night and it was clear.”

Howard turned back to the sky. This was going to be a conversation where he couldn’t look at Vince, he needed to not look at him, least he loses courage.

“I never stopped wanting to be around you, Howard. The fact that you think there was a point where I did…you weren’t lying when you said we’d gone wrong.”

“You kept joining bands and leaving me behind, Vince. When we started I thought yeah, this is it for us. We done everything else, being a band will be the easiest thing for us. But then, at some point we stopped. Why’d we stop?”

“I can’t remember.”

“It was like, soon as we stopped making music, we stopped everything else; we got cruel and started to actually mean the insults. I don’t,” Howard sighed. “I don’t want to go back to that, Vince.”

Howard could feel the weight of Vince’s stare. “You think I do?”

“I don’t know. I just, when did we stop being able to talk to each other without slinging insults?”

“We’re not now.”

Howard shook his head, “That’s not how it works, little man. And I don’t want all we’ve been through together to break down and waste away. It’s too important for that to happen, you’re too important.”

“What, and you think you ain’t? All else could go away and I’d still be happy with you. Remember back in the Zoo? We didn’t have much of anything other than each other and we were happy.”

“But were we really happy?”

The slap to Howard’s arm flared brightly and pulled his gaze from the stars to frown at Vince. “What was that for?”

“We been over this, no mentioning of, or thinking like, Tommy Nooka ever.”

Howard rubbed his arm, but he smiled. “Sorry.”

“’Sides, I may go with other people sometimes, but they ain’t you, Howard. Why would I go and leave you forever when no one else is like you?”

“Sap.”

Vince grinned, “You love it.”

Howard huffed a soft laugh. “Yeah, little man, I do.”

Vince shifted and leaned against Howard’s side, seeping in his warm like a leech, or a cat who hides underneath cars to soak up the warmth from the engines.

 

(Howard wondered what happened to the sheets of paper he’d leave out for Vince and the truth was, they were all tucked into the back of Vince’s bedside draw.

All of them accept for one note.

At any given time, you could always guarantee that Vince will have a well-worn, torn corner of a blue art flier with Howard’s writing on it.

_“You are still the only thing, and everything I need in my life.”_

Where he goes, so it goes.)


End file.
